He suggested that Abel left the womens bodies on the pastureland because he knew theyd be ravaged by animals. When Im near him, I feel like Im in the presence of evil., Yet there are problems with the allegations against Abel: Not a shred of physical evidence has ever been found linking him to the four women found dumped in the oil field, no evidence has been uncovered by any police department that can connect him to the murders they have been investigating, and no witness can place him with any of the teenagers or women before they were found dead. Detectives from other agencies, frustrated with their own unsolved murders, began calling the police in League City to ask about Abel. Tim Miller in "Crime Scene: The Texas Killing Fields" on Netflix. let gads_event; Every day Bittner would sit behind his battleship-gray desk, flip through his case files, repeat to himself all the relevant details, and then stare at the autopsy photos, hoping that the dead women could tell tales. He turned part of it into riding stables. Emily McCullar is a senior editor covering pop culture, news, and Texas history. eventAction: 'click_image_ads' (Heide Fye and Laura Miller lived less than half a mile away, but Abel told me he never knew them.) Robert Abel, a former NASA engineer who ran a minor horseback-riding business, remained one of the chief suspects in the Texas Killing Fields Murders case. } You see those high weeds? Miller said. Leave them blank to get signed up. Look, there are still many questions that need to be asked, Bittner told me. }); ga('ads.send', { },false) He thus slowly realized that very few believed in his claims of innocence, especially as locals began avoiding him in public places as well. There have been few crimes more haunting in Texas than the killings of several young women who lived in towns located along the fifty-mile coastal stretch between Houston and Galveston. Nows Your Chance. When investigations into Millers missing body were being made, another corpse was found, who wasnt identified until years later as Audrey Lee Cook, a mechanic who was last seen alive in 1985. In 2014, he was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter for the death of 29-year-old Ellen Rae Simpson Beason. The former NASA scientist who also owns the fields, forcefully involved himself in solving the crimes which, for many people involved, only served to heighten the suspicion surrounding him. Lawmen think the retired NASA engineer could be responsible for the deaths or disappearances of several young women who lived in the coastal plain between Houston and Galveston. MEAWW is an initialism for Media Entertainment Arts WorldWide. pg.acq.push(function() { At the time, no one made the connection that she was last seen alive at the same convenience store where Heide Fye had last been seen. Robert Abel was one of the alleged prime suspects in the abduction and murder of Tim Miller's daughter along with the 3 other victims found on Calder Rd back in the 80s. Robert Abel - A retired NASA engineer died in early 2005. ga('ads.send', { It was Paula, he said, who had the fits of rageI was scared to death of her at one point, to be honest with you, and I told the police thatand he said Cindy Jacobs was angry with him after the honeymoon only because he wouldnt put her name on his checking account and didnt let her see his will. And I understood why everyone was so desperate to hunt down the bogeyman: so they could tell themselves they were safe again. A few days later I returned to League City. By all accounts, Stardust Trailrides was an immediate success, drawing people from all over the Houston area, including a few couples who came to have their wedding conducted on horseback. But there would be no peace. I dont think people here realize that ol Tim will want to keep digging all night, one said with a grin as he popped open a beer. We had our rounds, our arguments and fights. The majority of victims were girls and young women, aged between 12 and 25 years old. We had to search for suspects, says Pat Bittner, the League City detective who, at the tender age of 30, was put in charge of the murder investigation. Laura had been a straight-A student in elementary school in League City, but after she began to have seizures at age twelve, she grew depressed, made a couple of halfhearted suicide attempts, and started hanging out with a crowd of teenagers who used drugs. Just 20 days to my birthday, reads the note written by Laura Smither, an aspiring ballerina from the quiet town of Friendswood. I wanted him to know that I would never forget what he had done, says Miller, who several times a week had been driving out to the site where Lauras body had been found, standing before a wooden cross he had erected there in her memory. } More than 30 victims have been found since the 1970s and the land is infamously known as the Texas Killing Fields.. The gold tooth turned out to be from Abels own mouth. pg.acq.push(function() { Some law enforcement officials said the beta-blockers he took for his high blood pressure could have affected the results of those tests. He may sound innocent enough, but he has a dark side. The four killings remain shrouded in mystery and ex-Nasa engineer Robert Abel was also among the suspects accused. The Star Dust Trail Rides business once owned by Abel encircles the Killings Fields. Her body was found under a bridge by the Trinity River near the Louisiana border. With Netflix's 'Crime Scene: The Texas Killing Fields' living up to its title in every way imaginable, we get a complete insight into the dark, twisted, sordid side of human nature many times over. But that doesnt mean we will stop looking for her. Abel told Grant that if he had been in charge in 1991 when the fourth body was found, he would have searched a nearby pond because the killer might have thrown something in there. During this week in true crime history, Suzanne Rene Richerson was reported missing after she disappeared while working at a Galveston resort in October of 1988. I also understood why the parents of public school students in Friendswood had been given special kits to take their childrens fingerprints and keep locks of their hair in the horrifying event that their remains were one day found and needed to be identified. Just before he shook my hand good-bye, he said, Do I really look like a killer? Investigators also flew over his land in helicopters, and Abel was interviewed by detectives in neighboring towns, but nothing was found. I wanted kids and families to have the chance to be around horses like I did when I was a kid, he says. It remains unclear if Abel had taken his own life. Coming here was my chance to keep working at NASA and be able to work some cattle on the weekends, he says. He was hit by a train while traveling on his golf cart. Netflix Netflix's new docuseries, Crime Scene: The Texas Killing Fields, explores the mysterious disappearances and deaths of many young women and girls in southern Texas, dating back to. hitType: 'event', "When I'm near him, I feel like I'm in the presence of evil.". According to one FBI report, an organized killer is in the bright-superior intelligence range and, therefore, potentially a skilled imposterin other words, hes able to fit into everyday society without drawing any suspicion. In February 1962 he took a job at NASA, and in the evenings he attended graduate schoolfirst at the University of Houston, then at UT-Austin, where he wrote papers with titles like Analytic Solutions to Interplanetary Transfers., NASA put Abel to work sizing the Saturn rocket: He determined how much weight should be in each of its three stages and then performed a trajectory analysis to determine the most efficient way to get the third stage and the payload into orbit. } The medical examiner thought she had been beaten to death with a club. window.googletag.cmd.push(function() { Was Abel innocent, or wasnt he? Well, who knows what happened out here? he said. Police say the original investigations into these. What made Abel a suspect was that he owned the property right next to the land where the bodies were found. Audrey had disappeared from the Houston area around December 1985, whereas the Nassau Bay resident Donna had gone missing in July 1991. Among the questions he posed was whether any bodies had turned up near the six-hundred-acre Abel family ranch near Bellville the way they had near his land in League City. Whenever any of them stopped in a certain place and alerted (that is, barked to signify that they smelled something), Miller would head over there and dig. Everyone who knew him was certain he had taken his own life. Robert Abel was a retired aerospace engineer who had leased the property and finally bought a portion, 3001 Calder Drive for his horse stable. (Jane told me that the split was amicable, really just caused by us growing in different directions over the years.) Abel started spending his evenings meeting women at the little bars and restaurants around the Johnson Space Center in Clear Lake; sometimes hed stop by Elan, Houstons hottest nightclub. Paula also said that she had seen several photos of nude women in his desk drawer at the house, and that Abel not only owned handguns but also carried one with him during the later months of 1991. (Paula and Cindy would not be interviewed, but they have not retracted the sworn statements they gave Bittner.) As Miller drove his tractor past the cross that marked Lauras body, the dogs began to fan out. Confessed killer details murder of Texas Killing Fields victim - February 16, 2016; What Are The Texas Killing Fields? Every day since 1986every single dayI had been waking up thinking about the last moments of Lauras life. For weeks I had felt almost as if I had been part of some parlor game. Heidi Fye, 23, vanished in 1983, and her remains were located in April 1984, and 16-year-old Laura Miller's body was found close by in 1986. . They were mainly the bodies of girls or young women. By The police soon ascertained the incident as death by suicide, and even the general consensus believes that he chose death as he did not want to go on leading such a lonely life. Between 1984 and 1991, the remains of four young women were found on the same patch of land near Calder Road in League City. She had been reported missing by her family in . Others push their daughters out of sight so that he cant get a look at them. But Abel became furious and very defensive. In fact, they dont have any. }); Or is he a victim of overzealous police work and outright hysteria? In 1997 one police department ran a computer search of registered sex offenders living between Houston and Galveston, and more than 2,100 names popped up. His name was Robert Abel, and he was so eager to assist the police the day the fourth body was found that he helped them clear brush in the area and let them use fourteen of his horses and his backhoe free of charge. window.googletag.pubads().addEventListener('slotRenderEnded', function(event) { His property was next to an abandoned oil field, known as the killing fields, where the remains of four young women had been found between 1984 and 1991. Abel told the police he had started keeping those articles because he was interested in their investigation. Abel led many of the trail rides himself over the property and through his leased land. Laura was only twelve years old when she jotted those words on a message board on the morning of April 3, 1997, a couple of hours before she went jogging through her neighborhood and disappeared. }); Some refer to this stretch of the Gulf Freeway as a. Sales hit $250,000 in 1991, he says. Around 25 miles south of Houston sits what has become known as the Texas Killing Fields, a 25-acre tract of land where the bodies of at least 30 murder victims, mostly girls and women between 12 and 25 years old, have been found since the 1970s. Although he never hit her, she said she had watched him beat horses with pipes and chains until they submitted to his commands. Interestingly, in 2013, a fellow League City resident named Clyde Hedrick was arrested for the unrelated murder of Ellen Beason, only for the ensuing legal proceedings to indicate he could be the Texas Fields Killer. He offered discount trail rides to youth groups and charities, provided catered barbecue dinners, hired country music singers to perform cowboy songs, and often threw in free hayrides for toddlers. Johnny . In 2019, she was named as Audrey Lee Cook, a 30-year-old mechanic last seen alive in December 1985. Although her father, Tim Miller, noticed several similarities between Heide and Lauras disappearances, the authorities considered them utterly unrelated. (Abel denies this ever happened.) if(document.querySelector("#adunit")){ Although Edward Bell has always been associated with the Texas Killing Fields murders, he was not featured in Netflix's series on the case. After all, it charts not just the way several women have wound up dead along Interstate 45 since the 1970s but [] You wouldnt be intimidated by leaving those bodies in your own back yard., Since Bittners promotion to assistant police chief in April 1997, the new League City detective on the case, Marty Grant, has raised the money to put up a billboard along I-45 asking for help solving the murders, and he has had a small retention pond on the old oil field drained because of a single comment Abel made last year when Grant paid him a courtesy call to tell him he was now running the investigation. Abel shrugged, appearing neither anxious nor relieved. In 1984, the first of the four women were found, with the remains of Heidi Fye, 23, being spotted on the patch of land right next to where Laura Millers was found two years later. During the search for Miller, another woman's body was found, but unfortunately, she couldn't be identified and became known as Jane Doe. Crime Scene: The Texas Killing Fields, the newest season in Netflix's true crime docuseries, has received its first trailer. One of the best films from 2016 and nobody saw it. Abel was a retired NASA engineer, who was linked to the disappearance and deaths of many young women. 1 of 2 Tim Miller, founder of Texas EquuSearch, says he hopes his lawsuit will lead to developments in his daughter's slaying. 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